








\ 











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X 



OF THIS BOOK ONE HUNDRED AND SIX 

COPIES HAVE BEEN PRINTED ON 

O. W. HAND-MADE PAPER AND 

SIXTEEN COPIES ON 

IMPERIAL JAPAN 

PAPER 



THE 

HUDSON-FULTON 

CELEBRATION 




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i:; I 






THE 

HUDSON-FULTON 

CELEBRATION 

MCMIX 

BY 

GUSTAV KOBBE 



WITH A 
FOREWORD 

BY 



1 'fl 



A-^ 



^'^ 










COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY 
THE SOCIETY OF ICONOPHILES 



MONUMENTUM 

A E R E 

PERENNIUS 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Foreword ^5 



HUDSON-FULTON CELEBRATION 

I The Meaning of the Week 23 

II The Trysting of the Fleet 28 

III A City's History Retold 39 

IV The Passing of Armed Men 47 

V The Flight of the Man Bird 52 

VI The Assembling of the Old Masters • •• • 57 

VII The Captains and the Kings Depart .... 62 



Officers of the Hudson-Fulton Celebration 

Commission ^7 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

DESIGNED AND ENGRAVED 
BY FRANCIS S. KING 

PAGE 

1 The Water Gate Frontispiece 

II Title Page 7 

III The "Half Moon" 15 

IV Church of St. Ethelburga 20 

V The Court of Honor 23 

VI The "Clermont" 64 



FOREWORD 




FOREWORD 



A LTHOUGH bookmaking does not lie strictly within the 

/ \ province of the Society of Iconophiles, its active mem- 

/ \ bers, upon whose shoulders rests the responsibility of 

its management, feel that no apology is necessary 

for the appearance under its imprint of the following pages. 

They assume that the Society is not only justified in issuing 

this monograph, but that it was incumbent upon it to make a 

printed note of this, the greatest civic celebration, in some at 

least of its varied features, that the New or Old World, in Ancient 

or Modern times, has ever witnessed, and so they commissioned 

>5 



FOREWORD 

Mr. Gustav Kobbe to prepare this succinct but comprehensive 
account of the monster week-long fete. 

To this commemorative celebration we invited the civilized 
nations of the earth, and when their representatives came in 
response from the four points of the compass, few if any of them 
— we venture to say — failed to find someone to welcome them 
in their native tongues, so strikingly in this respect does New 
York resemble its foster-mother-city of Amsterdam, which Fene- 
lon thus described two hundred years ago: 

"When one beholds this City, one is inclined to believe that 
it is not the City of a particular people, but the Common city of 
all the peoples of the earth and the center of their commerce." 

One important feature is lacking in the remembrancer we 
have made of the Hudson-Fulton Celebration — a portrait of 
Henry Hudson; but so far as known no authentic picture, either 
painted or engraved, of the "superb seaman" exists, notwith- 
standing one, so-called, has been scattered over the length and 
breadth of the City during these festival days. It was copied 
from a painting of which the Municipality of the City of New 
York is the proud possessor, and which has done duty heretofore 
as a portrait of Christopher Columbus. 

The common belief long entertained by collectors of prints 
relating to the History of the City of New York that no portrait 
of Henry Hudson exists, is newly confirmed by the thorough 
investigations made in Holland and elsewhere by the American 
Numismatic Society in connection with the official medal of the 
Hudson-Fulton Celebration designed by Emil Fuchs of London, 
under the direction of that Society. From the interesting de- 

i6 



FOREWORD 

scription of this medal, written by Mr. Edward D. Adams, 
Chairman of the Society's Committee on the Publication of 
Medals, we take, by permission, the following paragraphs: 

"In portraiture the medal is limited to the bust of Robert 
Fulton, reproduced by the kind permission of his grandson, 
from the painting by the American artist, Benjamin West, now 
in possession of Robert Fulton Ludlow. 

"In the case of Henry Hudson, it was concluded after most 
diligent search and inquiry, at the British Museum and at the 
museums of Holland, as well as, of course, at the office of the 
English Muscovy Company and of the Dutch East India Com- 
pany, former employers of Hudson, that no authentic portrait 
of Henry Hudson exists. While it would have been easy to 
appropriate a type of an English seaman of that date for an 
imaginative portrait, it was thought best, in the interest of per- 
manent historical records, as such a medal must necessarily be, 
not to introduce into the design anything that required the 
explanation that it really was not what it pretended to be. The 
absence of any portrait of Hudson is undoubtedly due to the 
tragedy of his last voyage and the long concealment of his 
death." 

Within Bishopsgate, London, there stands, surrounded by 
"parasitic business buildings," a little church, formerly dedicated 
to the Virgin Daughter of Ethelbert, King of Kent, which is 
mentioned in English history as early as the XIV century. It 
shelters to-day an active church organization, whose watchword 
is "Christian Charity" in the broadest sense of the term. Its 
doors stand open daily from high noon to four o'clock, and this 

17 



FOREWORD 

cordial and catholic invitation to enter them is extended to the 
wayfarer and passerby : 

"any persons, who in the clash of creeds 
are being drawn to the inner light, are 
invited to join their fellows at st. ethel- 
burga's church." 

To this diminutive edifice, known in his time as the "Mari- 
ner's Church" and "noted for its short services for city men," 
Hudson and his crew, we are told, repaired to partake of the Sacra- 
ment before sailing under the direction of the Muscovy Company 
of London to attempt a passage across the North Pole to the 
Eastern parts of Asia. Here, if they have not been removed 
since Augustus Hare took his walks in London and wrote about 
them so entertainingly, one may look upon the fine fragments of 
XIII Century stained glass through which the light streamed 
down upon the kneeling figures of Hudson and his brave men, 
and this is the nearest approach we can make, it would ap- 
pear, to the personalities of the Captain and crew of the Half 
Moon. 

If Crispin de Passe, the skillful engraver of the portrait of 
Captain John Smith — Hudson's contemporary and close friend — 
had foreseen Hudson's equal or greater future fame, and realized 
that his was "One of the few, the immortal names, that were 
not born to die," then, indeed, we hopefully might search the 
print shops for a "graven effigy" of the Discoverer of the Grate 
River of the North, and the man who, moreover, according to 
John Fiske, started two great industries, the Spitzbergen whale 
fisheries and the Hudson Bay fur trade. 



FOREWORD 

Until the last decade or so, few citizens of New York have 
displayed an overweening fondness for, or interest in, the history 
of their City or in the "things that do exalt it." At least they 
have not shown that practical interest which manifests itself in 
a search for, and preservation of, memorials of the past of this 
great Metropolis. Whatever interest has been felt must have 
been of a dormant nature, which now — in this great celebration 
with its music, pageantry, millions of electric lights, pyrotechnics, 
and the booming of great guns — has, like a slumbering volcano, 
burst all bounds and carried everything before it in its patriotic 
onward and upward rush. 

It was a remarkable spectacle that the streets of New York 
presented during the week of the never-to-be-forgotten Hudson- 
Fulton Celebration of the year 1909, and by far the most 
impressive part of it was, not the show itself, but the dense and 
orderly throngs of human beings — the sea of human faces — that 
lined the six-mile route of each day's procession, as it wound its 
way from i loth Street and Central Park West to the Washington 
Arch at the foot of Fifth Avenue. 

In addition to the remarkable collection of Dutch paintings 
of the Seventeenth Century, Colonial furniture, silverware, etc., 
to which Mr. Kobbe refers at length in his account of the Great 
Celebration, interesting exhibitions were held by a number of 
other Societies and Institutions — of rare and valuable prints, 
Maps, Autographs and other objects, animate and inanimate, 
illustrating New York, its Past and Present, the Discoveries and 
Explorations of the Continent and the introduction of steam navi- 
gation. Among them were the following: American Geograph- 
ical Society, Museum of Natural History, Society of Mechanical 

19 



FOREWORD 



Engineers, City History Club of New York, Colonial Dames of 
the National Society of the State of New York, College of the 
City of New York, National Arts Club, New York Historical 
Society, Botanical Garden, Zoological Park, Genealogical and 
Biographical Society, Washington's Headquarters (The Jumel 
Mansion, Roger Morris Park), The Brooklyn Institute, Long 
Island Historical Society, and the Staten Island Association of 
Arts and Sciences Public Museum. The list, if completed, would 
include about every Association of an Antiquarian, Literary, 
Artistic, Historical and Scientific character in Greater New 
York, and conclusively demonstrate the widespread interest 
evoked throughout the community by the Hudson-Fulton 
Memorial Celebration. 



'^■■■\":T 




THE 

HUDSON-FULTON 

CELEBRATION 




I 

THE MEANING OF THE WEEK 



PEACE hath its pageantry no less than war. Therein 
hes the deeper significance of the Hudson-Fulton 
Celebration. 
Hudson, an explorer; Fulton, an inventor — yet no 
triumph to a Caesar returning victorious from war has equalled 
in magnitude the pageant that for a week unfolded itself before 
the eyes of the great city on the bank of the river named after the 
explorer and first navigated by steam through the genius of the 
inventor. 

Before this celebration, America's nearest approach to a 
Roman triumph was the Dewey parade. But, fine as that was— 
the forces it marshalled, the crowds that watched it, were insig- 

23 



THE HUDSON-FULTON CELEBRATION 

nificant as compared with the plan, scope and execution of the 
Hudson-Fulton Celebration. 

And there is another aspect which gives further significance 
to it. A triumph, such as Rome gave its victorious generals, is 
an immediate thing, organized and carried out while the popular 
imagination still is fired with the greatness of an achievement 
environed by the pomp, circumstance and panoply of war. A 
triumph is a thing born of the excitement of the moment, a flash 
of popular enthusiasm, a flame often fanned by a government 
seeking to make itself more stable through the public's tribute 
to the commander of its returning army. 

How different this celebration! As different in spirit and 
conception as are the shallows that murmur from the depths that 
are dumb. This was no popular acclaim of an achievement of 
yesterday. It was three hundred years ago that an obscure 
little vessel turned its prow up the river that now bears the name 
of its navigator; and it was two years more than a century ago 
that the country folk, scattered along the banks of that same 
river, watched, with amazement and fear, a strange craft make 
its way up stream under the propulsion of steam. Thus New 
York, and through it the New World, celebrated two peaceful 
achievements, one of three centuries, the other of a century ago, 
and celebrated them in a manner that thrust a "triumph" as 
such, into the background. 

Moreover, it was a celebration with which the whole world 
thrilled in response, for the world appreciates now the bearing 
that the discovery of the Hudson River and the practical applica- 
tion of steam to navigation have had upon its progress. That 
progress was emphasized by details of the celebration. In 1609, 

24 



THE MEANING OF THE WEEK 

when night enveloped the Half Moon, a lantern, dimly discernible 
for a short distance, burned at its masthead. In 1909 a battery 
of searchlights of more than a million candle power, and capable 
when united of shooting a ray fifty miles through the night, was 
a feature of the celebration. 

Hudson found an Indian village where to-day the "peaks of 
Manhattan" pierce the sky. This contrast was shown by floats 
in the historical pageant, on which tepee and skyscraper, as well 
as Fulton's steamboat and the swift ocean steamship of to-day, 
were represented. 

In a curiously interesting way the names of Hudson and Ful- 
ton were most appropriately linked in this celebration, for while 
one was an explorer and the other an inventor, both had to do 
with navigation, and what Fulton achieved can be expressed by 
stating that while it took Hudson thirty-four days to cross the 
Atlantic, when he sailed back from Sandy Hook to Dartmouth, 
it was Fulton's invention that a century later made possible the 
four-day crossings of the Lusitania and Mauretania. In fact, 
during celebration week the Mauretania arrived at this port with 
another clip off her record; while a kind of ship that neither Hud- 
son nor Fulton ever dreamed of, the aeroplane of Wilbur Wright, 
sailed through the air from Governor's Island to Grant's tomb 
and back. 

And now, just one more, and perhaps the most interesting, 
general consideration of the subject that the event forces upon 
the mind. What New York celebrated in Hudson's case abso- 
lutely was the triumph of a failure. When Hudson sailed up the 
Cahohatea, as the Indians called the river which now bears his 
name, he was in quest of a northwest passage to China. In that 

25 



THE HUDSON-FULTON CELEBRATION 

quest he failed wretchedly, and in further pursuing it met a mis- 
erable end in Hudson Bay. But mark the triumph that has 
sprung from failure. His discovery of the river led to the found- 
ing at its mouth of the little Dutch trading post from which has 
grown the greatest city of the New World and one of the great 
cities — some think the greatest — of the whole world. 

Reviewing the celebration in its entirety, it may be said that, 
with an intelligent grasp of its opportunity deserving of recog- 
nition, the Commission sought to accomplish something higher, 
something more lasting than simply to make a populace stare in 
open-eyed wonder. It saw a means, through a series of parades 
and pageants, to furnish New Yorkers, by means of visual instruc- 
tion, with a great object lesson in the history and development 
of their city. What that would have meant — if successfully 
carried out — to the great proportion of New York's foreign-born 
population is obvious; and it is a question if such instruction 
is not needed quite as much by the native population of a city 
which, more than any other probably, is concerned with the pres- 
ent rather than with the past. 

The chief public features of the celebration were the naval 
parade of Saturday, September 25th, when the reproductions of 
the Half Moon and the Clermont passed up the river through a 
lane of saluting warships; the historical pageant of Tuesday, Sep- 
tember 28th; the military parade of Thursday, September 30th; 
and the carnival pageant on the night of Saturday, October 2d. 
In this series the historical pageant was planned as a great ^edu- 
cational feature. It was intended to be observed that as float 
after float went by, the progression was historical — from the days 
when the Iroquois had their wigwams on Manhattan to the mid- 
26 



THE MEANING OF THE WEEK 

die of the last century. For reasons, which will be stated later, 
this pageant did not wholly meet expectations. In fact, it may 
be said, that the otherwise laudable spirit in this country which 
prompts the subordination of the military to the civic, allowed 
the civilian element too much scope in the celebration. It marred 
the historical pageant. The naval parade, too, would have been 
far more effective if the seventy-eight warships, instead of being 
at anchor and forming a line for the Half Moon and Clermont to 
pass in review— while the actual parade consisting of a numerous 
and motley array of merchant craft passed around the warship 
formation— had steamed up the river and, with the exception of 
the Half Moon and Clermont, constituted the sole feature of the 
parade. One does not get seventy-eight warships together every 
day. It was the greatest fleet of its kind ever assembled, save 
in the English channel when England herded her own, and the 
greatest international fleet ever assembled anywhere. Yet this 
fleet, the possible sight of which steaming up the river almost 
staggers the imagination (and, unfortunately, still is left to the 
imagination) lay strung out at anchor, its majesty dissipated, 
and playing second fiddle to a lot of excursion boats, tugs and 
lighters! 

But those details in which the plans of the Commission failed 
to come up to expectation, served to bring into greater relief the 
most conspicuous success of the celebration and its most inspiring 
feature, which we Americans may well be proud to have seen 
displayed before our recent visitors from foreign shores. That 
was the crowd that watched it. Whether solidly massed on the 
slope of Riverside Park and Drive, or jammed along the line of 
pageant and parade, its patience often sorely tried yet never giv- 

27 



THE HUDSON-FULTON CELEBRATION 

ing way, its behavior was exemplary. Thus, intended to com- 
memorate two triumphs of civilization, the celebration itself pro- 
duced a third — a triumph thoroughly American and interpre- 
tive of the genius of the Republic, which, through its guaranty of 
personal liberty, also has driven home the lesson of individual 
responsibility. 



II 

THE TRYSTING OF THE FLEET 

THE celebration was felt in the air for more than a week 
before it actually began. The building of the Court 
of Honor at Fifth Avenue from Fortieth to Forty- 
second streets, and of the Water Gate at i loth Street 
and the Hudson River, the blossoming out of bunting and fes- 
toons of electric lamps on buildings and stands, and the booming 
of saluting guns from forts and arriving warships, to say nothing 
of the many evident strangers in town, all tended to key up the 
interest in events impending. First among the foreign squad- 
rons to draw sightseers to the West Side were the French battle- 
ships, La Liberie, La Veriie and La Justice, all with the low-set, 
grim, bull-dog look the artistic French know how to impart to 
their sea-fighters. 

It was the day before the celebration opened that a white and 
a dark gray fleet were added to the long line of warships anchored 
in the Hudson. It was then that amid firing of cannon the Ger- 
man and British ships passed up bay, harbor and river and swung 
to their anchors. The Victoria Louise came in first, followed by 

28 



THE TRYSTING OF THE FLEET 

the Hertha, the Dresden and the Bremen. The Presidente Sarmi- 
ento, the Argentine training ship, an earher arrival, saluted the 
German flag off Tompkinsville and was answered, and off Gov- 
ernor's Island the German squadron fired twenty-one guns as the 
American flag was run up to the foremast head; and there was 
more firing up the river before the cruisers anchored. 

The first real excitement, however, came with the arrival of 
the English squadron. It was not more than two hours after the 
Germans had passed up that England's line of great gray armored 
cruisers was sighted coming through the Ambrose Channel, led 
by the Inflexible, of 17,250 tons, with the flag of Sir Edward Ho- 
bart Seymour, Admiral of the fleet, whipping at the main truck. 
The Drake, of 14,100 tons, bearing the flag of Rear Admiral 
Frederick T. Hamilton; the Duke of Edinburgh, 13,550 tons, and 
the Argyll, 10,850 tons, were the ships that followed. 

The long, lean "Dreadnought cruiser," the Inflexible, with her 
eight twelve-inch guns and armored sides, and driving at full 
speed up the harbor, seemed to have nearly her whole comple- 
ment of more than seven hundred men on deck, a line of white 
at attention, as she was saluted and returned the salute of the 
little Argentine ship. But it was when the crowd that had as- 
sembled at the Battery and other shore fronts saw the four ships 
of the British fleet salute the American flag off Governor's Island 
that the big Dreadnought cruiser and the ships she led showed 
"how to do it." Eighty-four guns spoke in unison, and the 
squadron with the highest ranking officer of the combined fleets 
in the celebration passed on up the river, receiving salutes from 
the Mayflower, the Mexican, Italian, French, German and Dutch 
warships, and, finally, from the Connecticut. The American fleet 

29 



THE HUDSON-FULTON CELEBRATION 

had peculiar reasons for welcoming the British admiral. There 
must have been officers and men in our fleet who had served un- 
der him in 1900, when he led that forlorn hope in the attempt 
to relieve the Pekin legations, a gallant little band made up of 
complements from warships of several nations that vainly tried 
to fight its way to the capital. Our own fleet made a fine show- 
ing. But although the Inflexible technically was only a cruiser, 
and we had sixteen battleships in line, she was the most powerful 
ship of war at the celebration. 

The line of warships extended from Forty-seventh to 2226. 
Street, and, according to nationalities and the order of anchorage, 
this great international fleet was made up as follows: Mayflower 
and Newport, American; Mexico, Morelos; Argentine Republic, 
Presidente Sarmiento; Italy, Etna and Etruria; France, La Liberie, 
La Verite and La Justice; Germany, Bremen, Dresden, Hertha, 
Victoria Louise; Holland, Nieue Amsterdam (merchantman) and 
Utrecht; Portsmouth (New Jersey Naval Reserve); England, y^r^)'//, 
Duke of Edinburgh, Drake and Inflexible; United States, Idaho, 
Mississippi, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Louisiana, Kansas, 
Vermont, Connecticut, Ohio, Missouri, Wisconsin, Virginia, Rhode 
Island, Nebraska, New Jersey, Georgia, Montana, North Carolina, 
New York, Birmingham, Salem, Chester. 

Rear Admiral Seaton Schroeder, with the Connecticut as flag- 
ship, commanded the American fleet; Grand Admiral von Koester, 
with the Victoria Louise as flagship, commanded the German 
squadron; and Admiral Le Pord the French. The United States 
had many smaller war craft and vessels connected with the Navy 
and the Revenue Marine acting as escorts and in other capacities. 

It was estimated that the combined fleet reached a total of 
30 



THE TRYSTING OF THE FLEET 

more than 450,000 tons. In the main batteries of the ships there 
were 4 thirteen-inch, 80 twelve-inch, 10 ten-inch, 8 9.2-inch, 4 
8.2-inch, 109 eight-inch, 34 7.5-inch, 83 seven-inch, 21 five-inch, 
and 54 four-inch guns, making a grand total of 407 guns in the 
main batteries of these ships alone. With the smaller guns this 
number was trebled. 

The tonnage of the combined fleets was as follows: 

Great Britain 55J50 

United States 301,400 

Germany 12,000 

France 54,000 

Austria (estimated) 15,000 

Italy 5,800 

Netherlands 3»950 

Argentine 2,750 

Cuba 2,500 

Mexico 500 

Total 453,650 

From 25,000 to 30,000 officers and men were required to man 
the fleet. 

Such was the line of warships at anchor in the Hudson River 
Saturday, September 25, 1909, the day of what the Commission 
termed the naval rendezvous and manoeuvre, the word "parade" 
being reserved to designate the passage of the Half Moon and 
Clermont and an escorting fleet to Newburg the following Friday. 
Whether it was that the Half Moon caught the spirit of unrest 
that pervaded the city or decided to become a warship on her 

3' 



THE HUDSON-FULTON CELEBRATION 

own account, she suddenly was seized with a fit of cantankerous- 
ness on the very morning that opened the celebration, and came 
very near to spoiling it by her extraordinary exploits. 

It had been a question whether the Half Moon would use her 
sails or depend upon towing. The Clermont, of course, was to 
steam under her own power. Two hours before the start up the 
river, when the two vessels were being escorted to a point off 
Stapleton, S. I., the Dutch naval officer. Lieutenant Willem Lam, 
who was made up to impersonate Hudson, "even" as one news- 
paper writer put it, "to the largest display of unharvested whisk- 
ers recently seen in these parts," decided that the stiff breeze 
from the north warranted his casting off the tow line. This done, 
the eighteen Dutch sailors on the Half Moon's deck, all garbed 
in the style of two centuries ago, but accustomed to manoeuvre 
on the deck of a modern warship and not on that of a self-im- 
provised seventeenth-century one, laboriously dropped the great 
square sails of the fore and mizzen masts into position and slapped 
her full into the wind. The result was that she cut through the 
water at a rate that surely would have lowered Hudson's record 
in crossing the Atlantic. It would have been a fine sight, but 
for the fact that the Clermont lay in her path. Henry Hudson, 
having preceded Robert Fulton by two centuries, never had had 
any trouble with him, but it seemed as if the Half Moon, possibly 
jealous of the Clermont's motor power, was bent upon putting her 
out of commission. Bearing down upon her and, at this critical 
moment, failing to obey the tiller, the Half Moon crashed into 
the Clermont and shattered about twenty feet of her rail abaft 
her port paddle wheel and battered her own prow. Fortunately 
tools and a carpenter were part of the kit and complement of each 

32 



THE TRYSTING OF THE FLEET 

vessel, and the damage done at least was masked, if not wholly 
repaired, in time for the programme of the day to be carried out, 
although before the Half Moon was gotten completely under tow 
she made another attempt at ramming — this time the U. S. S. 
Prairie. 

During the rendezvous down the harbor the Brooklyn, Staten 
Island and New Jersey shores were lined with a great throng that 
could look down upon the water as upon an amphitheatre, and 
behold the thrilling spectacle of the huge fleet of smaller war- 
ships and other craft as it rendezvoused and manoeuvred and got 
under way with the Half Moon and the Clermont. One should 
try to picture the sight — the bluff along the Brooklyn side of the 
harbor, the hills of Staten Island, the gentle slope of the Jersey 
shore, black with people, while the tallest chimney in the world, 
on Constable Hook, sent forth its smoke, a tribute amid festivity, 
to the ceaseless toil that has made America what it is. And there, 
on the floor of the great amphitheatre — that floor the meeting 
place of the sea that Hudson crossed and the river he ascended, 
and which, two hundred years later, Fulton navigated with 
steam — lay the fleet. 

Before it got in motion the two wraiths, with their special es- 
cort squadron, consisting of torpedo boats, submarines, and other 
smaller government vessels, manoeuvred about the harbor from 
the Kill von Kull to the Narrows, by the Staten Island shore, 
and from there across to Fort Hamilton and up the Brooklyn 
water front to the place of rendezvous, where they joined the 
fleet. That historical accuracy was observed in manning the 
Half Moon already has been stated. The same accuracy was to 
be noted on the Clermont. Fulton, his financial backer, Chan- 

33 



THE HUDSON-FULTON CELEBRATION 

cellor Robert R. Livingston, and Harriet Livingston, who were 
on the first trip of the real Clermont, were impersonated on the 
so-called "replica." 

Motionless lay the fleet — as motionless as the Half Moon at 
anchor three hundred years ago. Then suddenly, at the dis- 
charge of a gun signal, it thrilled with life. Like a Titanic sea 
serpent, clad in scales of steel, belching smoke and hissing steam, 
it unwound its folds of half a thousand ships, headed for the 
Hudson, and proceeded up the river, until abreast of the chain 
of warships, effulgent with armor, bristling with guns, marking 
the latest floating achievement of man for the killing of man, 
there drew — what? Two tiny craft of ancient and, from the 
standpoint of to-day, useless model — craft that a shot would 
have sunk, a blow from the bow of any one of these ships of 
war have cut in two like paper. And yet, as the reproductions 
passed in review, battleship after battleship, cruiser after cruiser, 
gunboat after gunboat, thundered out its tribute to these sym- 
bols of peaceful conquest. Perhaps during the entire week that 
followed there was no moment so charged as this with the 
deeper significance of the Hudson-Fulton Celebration. Well 
might the wind, as the smoke from the guns rose upward, have 
twisted and shaped it into huge letters until there floated upon 
the air, as upon a pennant flung out high above the river, the 
legend with which this account of the celebration opened: " Peace 
hath its pageantry no less than war." 

To relate some of the details in these happenings, it was a 
trifle past one o'clock when a puff of smoke and a report from the 
bows of the U. S. S. Gloucester followed by twenty more guns, 
started the scout and escort squadrons attending the Half Moon 

34 



THE TRYSTING OF THE FLEET 

and the Clermont on their progress up the river toward the fleet 
of anchored warships. The "mounted police" of the occasion 
was a flotilla of revenue cutters. Then came the black hulls of 
eight torpedo boats, behind which the flagship of the commander 
of the parade, the Gloucester, fell into position. The escort 
squadron next joined the column; and then, like so many por- 
poises, came the submarines with a "mother ship" in attendance. 
The Half Moon followed and then the sputtering Clermont, dense 
smoke, due to her wood fuel, issuing from her stack. 

A blanket of humanity spread itself over the land; and in the 
various pier slips vessels that had found moorings there were 
black with people. So were the roofs of skyscrapers, even of 
those many blocks from the river. The flag of the American 
Peace Society flew from the roof of the Hudson Terminal building, 
and the Gloucester — which had sunk the Spanish torpedo boat 
destroyers at Santiago — gave the peace flag a salute of twenty- 
one guns. In quaint contrast was the salute the Half Moon gave 
the Lusitania as she passed the Cunard pier. The Half Moon 
carried two guns of seventeenth-century type, and each gave a 
bark, the modern leviathan of the sea acknowledging the salute 
with a gun, while the crowd that massed her deck cheered. In 
fact, unintentionally, the progress up the river was a triumph for 
the Half Moon. The chugging, splashing paddle-wheels of the 
Clermont sent her through the water at the rate of only four miles 
an hour; and when the Half Moon came abreast the U. S. S. 
Mayflower, off the foot of West Forty-seventh Street, and with 
her popguns answered the Mayflower's salute, the Clermont had 
dropped back seemingly about a quarter of a mile. 

The Mayflower was the beginning of a lane formed by the war- 

35 



THE HUDSON-FULTON CELEBRATION 

ships on the west and the shores of Manhattan on the east, into 
which the Half Moon and Clermont entered. 

The Mexican gunboat took up the salute, its blue-clad sailors 
dressing the ship while the band played. Before its guns had 
run the full gamut of the salute, the training ship of the Argentine 
Republic had joined in the chorus. Etna and Etruria for Italy 
caught up the refrain as the Half Moon came abreast of their gray 
hulls. The fighting tops of the French battleships let loose their 
racket, the sailors on each dressing ship while the bands tried to 
make themselves heard above the din made by the guns, the 
cheering throngs ashore and the screech of whistles. The gaunt- 
let run of the German cruisers, and the Half Moon, with a little 
later the Clermont, came to anchor between the Dutch cruiser 
Utrecht and the Water Gate and Grand Stand at i loth Street, the 
queer little guns of the Half Moon again distinguishing themselves 
by a salute of five barks, in honor of this crucial moment. 

For it was now that from this point in the river to Spuyten 
Duyvil, far to the north, the shores of the Hudson shook to the 
reverberations of a salute fired by the English ships and the entire 
American fleet, while from what seemed a million throats on land, 
came cheer after cheer. Boats were lowered from the Half Moon 
and the Clermont, and Henry Hudson in one, Robert Fulton and 
his distinguished passengers in the other, were put ashore at the 
Water Gate and received by the president of the Hudson-Fulton 
Commission, the Governor of the State, the Vice-President of the 
United States, and other American and foreign officials. There 
were presentations and speeches, which latter, like all the speeches 
during the celebration, do not appear to have contained any espe- 
cially noteworthy utterances. 

36 



THE TRYSTING OF THE FLEET 

For all practical purposes the ceremony for the first day now 
was concluded. The incongruous gathering of merchant and 
pleasure craft was supposed to be on parade, but, in point of fact, 
it was a straggling line of sight-seers afloat that went up the river 
outside the warships, turned the stakeboat at 222d Street, and 
came down again between the warships and the Manhattan shore. 
What might have been a very fine feature and of genuine interest, 
not only to the spectators on shore but to the officers and crews 
of the fighting ships— the superb fleet of steam yachts, marshalled 
by the New York Yacht Club— had, by an unfortunate error of 
judgment, been assigned to the end of the line, and, if it got up 
the river at all, it was lost in the confusion. This fleet, which said 
the latest word on the marine architecture of its class, which had 
been made ready for the review with infinite care and at great 
expense, and which was well officered and manned, certainly would 
have been second in interest only to the Half Moon and Cler- 
mont, and, had it come immediately after these, would have kept 
the parade from petering out so soon. 

Altogether, in the fleet of merchant and pleasure craft that 
was to have joined in the celebration there were about five hun- 
dred vessels. Only seventy had passed the Water Gate in review 
when the reviewing stand began to empty itself and the crowd on 
the Riverside slope to disintegrate. The vessels were to have come 
up the river again at night, but as many of them did not succeed 
in getting up at all, the night parade was called off. I have twice 
remarked that peace hath its pageantry no less than war. Here, 
I add, that the forces of war always should be relied upon to fur- 
nish the pageantry. 

However, it was a characteristic of Hudson-Fulton week that 
37 



THE HUDSON-FULTON CELEBRATION 

each failure was swallowed up in some great success that followed, 
and so the night made good all that had gone wrong that day. 

For with the night of the first day began a feature of the cele- 
bration that would have been impossible, but for one of the mar- 
vels of the modern world — a marvel so intimately associated with 
daily use that the wonder of it is lost sight of. This is man's 
yoking of electricity to the service of light. It made night as 
bright as day; it shot great rays of light up into the sky and over 
the river; it gave to the celebration a touch of magic that none 
who witnessed it will forget. Seemingly a modern Joshua, elec- 
tricity, had bade the sun stand still. 

Those who watched the approach of night from a vantage 
point on one of the great skyscrapers, saw across the western sky 
the last streak of crimson and orange melt into the clouds of 
dusk, while the moon swung in the eastward haze. Suddenly 
through the deepening shadows a slender shaft flashed into life. 
It was the tower of the Metropolitan Building on Madison Square. 
Almost simultaneously, in the lower part of the city, the tower 
of the Singer Building was outlined with incandescent candles, 
and the base of the Statue of Liberty glowed with light. The 
bridges, that had been invisible in the mist of twilight, became 
things of delicate tracery, pencilled by electricity in what seemed 
innumerable dots of gold against the night. As one writer put 
it, they came into view as quickly and as sharply as if some mas- 
ter hand had slashed the sombre background of the East River 
with a searing knife point. The illumination thus started, broke 
in billows over the whole city. Rivers and shore pulsed like one 
great sea of light the light of 600,000 electric lamps, giving, ap- 
proximately, 4,800,000 candle power, with the added 1,500,000 

38 



A CITY S HISTORY RETOLD 

candle power of the searchlight battery at the high point of 
Manhattan, above the Hudson at 153d Street. 

Every moment the eye caught new details of the picture. 
Every line, every ledge of the City Hail, was studded with jewels, 
the whole a jewelled casket. Chimneys became pillars of fire, 
while flares of real flame from the gas works at various points in 
the city added an impromptu element of weirdness to the general 
well-worked-out scheme of illumination. Fifth Avenue was fes- 
tooned on either side with strings of electric lamps carried from 
pillar to pillar. The illumination of the houses and the gay adver- 
tising signs, which gave color to the scene, and hence were not out 
of place, made the avenue a glowing, sentient thing, an effect to 
which the fluttering decorations— American and Hudson-Fulton 
flags, as plainly visible as by daylight— added not a little. 

And the river! Every vessel that was underway had its fes- 
toons of light strung from masts and rigging. Searchlights swept 
fanlike across the sky. Eight miles of battleships glowed like live 
coals. Fireworks soared and burst in air. 

So thrilled were the spectators they forgot to cheer. There 
could have been no greater tribute than their silence. 

HI 

A CITY'S HISTORY RETOLD 

FOR two days following the naval demonstration New 
York had a chance to draw a long breath and watch 
the strangers within its gates who thronged the streets, 
took possession of the seats on top of the Fifth Avenue 
busses, and were the joy of the cheaper department stores and res- 

39 



THE HUDSON-FULTON CELEBRATION 

taurants and the despair of the high-class ones. Then, on Tues- 
day, September 28th, through six miles of flag-draped streets, or, 
to be more precise, through a lane densely packed on either side 
with humanity — a crowd estimated at two and a half millions — 
fifty-four pages of New York City's history passed in review. 

This was the historical pageant, a series of fifty-four floats 
retelling the story of New York from the days of the Iroquois 
to the middle of the last century. Unwittingly, however, the 
pageant produced another and more eloquent culmination to the 
events it illustrated in the multitude that witnessed it, and was 
the real success of the occasion. The pageant itself has been 
stigmatized as a failure. But this is unjust, for, although owing 
to that lack of discipline which seems inseparable from great 
civilian demonstrations, the pageant as a whole was not as im- 
pressive as it should have been, it served two purposes. Those 
parts of it that were carried out successfully were watched with 
deep interest; while those parts too obviously devoid of merit 
were accepted by participants and spectators alike as touches of 
comedy to be enjoyed and laughed at — bits of unalloyed diver- 
sion in what had been intended for a very serious function. 
Thus, with the American crowd's unique capacity for adapting 
itself to circumstances, it was impressed when others might have 
yawned, it laughed when others might have growled. It was 
there to enjoy itself and it did. 

Had the pageant been carried out as planned, it would have 
been, besides illustrating the history of New York, itself one of 
the most noteworthy events in the history of the city. Some of 
the floats were thirty-two feet long and fourteen feet wide, and 
so high that the line of march had to avoid the elevated railway 

40 



A CITY S HISTORY RETOLD 

Structures because these floats could not have passed under them. 
It started at Central Park West and i loth Street; proceeded to 
Fifty-ninth Street and then east to Fifth Avenue; and down 
Fifth Avenue, through the Court of Honor, to Washington Square 
and Fourth Street. In justice to the Commission I shall first 
describe this historical pageant as if it had been carried out exactly 
in accordance with the comprehensive plan of its projectors; 
then state some of the circumstances that were against its even- 
tuation as planned, and show the disarrangement that resulted. 
It is only fair that the commission's purpose should be included 
in this record. 

Taking it for granted, then, that everything went as was in- 
tended, the pageant, marching in four divisions, was a visual 
unfolding of four periods of New York history. The grand 
divisions in the order of march were the Indian, with ten floats; 
the Dutch, with twelve; the English and Colonial, with eighteen, 
and the United States, with thirteen; each division preceded by 
a title car, and one grand title car preceding the whole. 

As the pageant progressed down the line of march this huge 
float, called "The New York Title Car," and summing up in a 
single picture the progress of the city during three hundred years 
of history, was the first object to greet the eye. It showed the 
Goddess of Liberty seated with the record book on her lap. 
Perched on the back of her chair were the owls of knowledge. 
Before her were the Indian canoe and the ocean greyhound, and 
back of the chair the Indian wigwam and the skyscraper. This 
was followed by the Indian title car, its most conspicuous feature, 
an immense Indian headdress of eagle feathers. There were also 
on this float a necklace of bears' teeth, great trophies of corn, 

41 



THE HUDSON-FULTON CELEBRATION 

tobacco and other products of Indian field cultivation, and in 
front a large bear holding up a shield containing implements of 
agriculture and war and surrounded by the totems of the Five 
Nations — deer, snake, tortoise, beaver and otter. Other Indian 
floats illustrated the Indian seasons, the legend of Hiawatha and 
various Indian dances. 

Next came the Dutch division, preceded by the Dutch title 
car. This car was fashioned after ancient Dutch naval archi- 
tecture, the bow decorated with pelts and surmounted by an 
immense Dutch shield, supported by two lions, the background 
formed by two large Dutch flags. One of the Dutch floats, 
called "A Dutch Doorway," showed a Dutchman standing in a 
half door, smoking his pipe and contemplating the peaceful scene 
about his house — a woman milking a cow, another feeding the 
chickens, and two children at work. 

This float was manned by one Dutch family — husband, wife, 
sister and children. The other Dutch floats included " Henry 
Hudson and the Half Moon," "The Purchase of Manhattan Is- 
land from the Indians," "Bowling on Bowling Green," "The Re- 
ception to Stuyvesant," "Bronck's Treaty with the Indians," 
and "The Huguenots Receiving their Title Deeds from Leisler." 
The Dutch division had for its finale a car representing the legend 
of St. Nicholas, and followed by one hundred and fifty Dutch 
children carrying toys. 

After this came the English and Colonial title car, heading 
that division of the procession. In front of the car was a roaring 
English lion, surrounded by cannon and with the flag and seal 
of England. Back of it was a Liberty Temple, and on the rear 
of the car an immense British flag was draped around cases of tea 

42 



A CITY S HISTORY RETOLD 

and bales of stamps. Such subjects as, "Old Time Punishments," 
with a man in the stocks, another in the pillory, and a witch in a 
ducking stool; the "Old Manor Hall in Yonkers," "The Trial of 
John and Peter Zenger," "Governor Dongan Giving to the City 
Its First Charter," "The Exploit of Marinus Willetts," "Pulling 
Down the Statue of George ill, on Bowling Green," "Nathan 
Hale," "Hamilton's Harangue," "Washington Taking the Oath 
of Office," "Washington's Coach," "Publishing the Constitution 
of the State of New York," and, in conclusion, the "Legend of 
Ichabod Crane," were features of this division. The United 
States title car bore an immense American eagle, it measured 
eighteen feet from tip to tip. in the foreground was a pedestal 
on which burned the " Fire of Knowledge," and which was sur- 
rounded by the shields of the thirteen original States. This 
division included the Clermont float and such floats as "The Erie 
Canal," "The Introduction of Croton Water," "An Old Time 
Broadway Sleigh," "The Old Volunteer Fire Department," the 
division, and with it the pageant itself, ending with a car on which 
a huge figure of Father Knickerbocker was receiving the nations 
of the earth. 

As to the manning of the floats, Iroquois Indians had been 
obtained for the Indian division, while the Dutch division w^s 
manned by members of the various Holland societies of the city. 
The Huguenot Society, Society of Colonial Wars, Sons of the 
Revolution, Sons of the American Revolution, Patriotic Order 
of the Sons of America and Founders and Patriots were recruited 
for the Colonial division. The float showing the storming of 
Stony Point was manned by Colonel Tyler's American Conti- 
nentals in uniform, and the float depicting the capture of Andre, 

43 



THE HUDSON-FULTON CELEBRATION 

by descendants of John Paulding. Students from Columbia 
University manned the Hamilton float, and students from the 
College of the City of New York the Nathan Hale car. Many 
foreign societies acted as escorting bodies in the march of the 
United States division. 

So far so good; and it is a pity that the pageant could not 
have been carried out exactly as planned. But the weather early 
in the morning was threatening, and not until ten o'clock was it 
decided definitely to hold the parade. As a result of the short 
time left in which to get it under way, there were several dis- 
arrangements in the order of the floats, and in which the escorting 
societies fell into line. In her hurry the Half Moon, true to the 
ill luck of her floating prototype on Saturday, promptly collided 
with a lamp post, and proceeded on her course minus part of her 
canvas sea; and the Statue of Liberty ceased to enlighten the 
world since, through a similar casualty she lost her torch. 

More serious to the object the Commission had had in view 
was the disarrangement of the order in which the floats should 
have come. Thus the "Erie Canal" and "Fulton Ferry" were 
in line with "The Destruction of the Statue of George HI" and 
"The Capture of Stony Point"; while Washington took the oath 
of office as first President of the United States seven blocks 
ahead of Henry Hudson discovering the Hudson River. 

Some of the escorting societies also became sadly mixed. The 
St. Nicholas float was escorted by members of a Syrian organiza- 
tion in red fezes, and the escort of the old Dutchmen playing the 
first game of bowls on Bowling Green was a French Society 
enthusiastically shouting "The Marseillaise." 

The Croton Water float had become tangled up in the Colon- 

44 



A CITY S HISTORY RETOLD 

ial division, and was just ahead of the float on which Nathan 
Hale was being brought before a British General, who, seated in 
front of his tent, was having a nice bottle of wine. Fortunately, 
the crowd enjoyed the mistake. 1 1 cheered the girls on the Croton 
float, and commented facetiously on the suggestion of "wine and 
water mixed " conveyed by the proximity of these features. 

Yet there were in the pageant features that impressed the 
spectators, and especially the many children, who recognized 
scenes of which they had read in their history books, were deeply 
interested, and pointed them out to their elders. Moreover, as 
the pageant approached the Court of Honor the scene was unique. 
The crowd on either side of the Avenue made it seem like a deep 
but narrow stream, down which, slowly but irresistibly, came the 
flood of marchers, the floats showing above them like ships on the 
billows of a black sea. Over all, in the gay sunlight that had 
succeeded to threatening clouds, flags and streamers snapped in 
bright profusion. The procession was led by the Mayor of the 
City and the presiding Vice-president of the Commission, both of. 
whom covered the entire line of march on foot. On the reviewing 
stand in the Court of Honor were the officials and guests, the only 
woman among the guests of honor being Mrs. Julia Ward Howe. 

The disarrangement in the order of floats was, of course, 
noticeable, but in front of each float marched two men bearing 
a standard with its number on the programme. Comment was 
passed, but not among the foreigners on the reviewing stand, on 
the prominence of certain societies inr^ho. parade. But, as one 
commentator jocosely remarked the next day, "more Irishmen 
have discovered America than Dutchmen." Furthermore these 
very societies were among the few that had the gumption, in spite 

45 



THE HUDSON-FULTON CELEBRATION 

of the confusion at the start, to get into their proper places in 
the Hne; and even that newspaper from which it might least have 
been expected, the Evening Post, spoke admiringly of "the serried 
ranks of shining top hats that marked Tammany's irresistible 
advance." 

And this brings me to the point of criticism that a costume 
pageant would have been far more effective than the procession 
of floats, which, in broad daylight, were more or less theatrical, 
in the tawdry sense, and perhaps could not have been otherwise; 
and which would have been well enough for a carnival or "veiled 
prophet" procession, in cities where such childish things are ad- 
mired, but were not of sufficient dignity or other merit as fea- 
tures in a great celebration. The epochs in the city's history 
could have been suggested, artistically and beautifully, by people 
in costume. The attempt to reproduce, realistically, the actual 
scenes failed, because such realism is impossible save on the stage 
of a theatre. 

"The floats yesterday," said the Evening Post in an editorial 
from which the brief quotation above came, "were fearfully un- 
real. A glaringly twentieth-century Peter Stuyvesant on a pre- 
carious balcony, a benevolent gentleman in spectacles storming 
Stony Point, are obviously not conducive to the development of 
the historical imagination. As against the bulky and incongru- 
ous float, we cast our vote for costume in parades and pageantry. 
Yesterday, the mummers in colonial costume pleased whenever 
they could be disassociated from the 'scenery.' The Knicker- 
bocker group in front of Washington's balcony was charming; 
so was the handful of passengers on the ridiculous canal boat; so 
was Martha Washington in her coach. Clothes, after all, appeal 

46 



THE PASSING OF ARMED MEN 

to a very fundamental passion in us, and when you put pretty 
clothes on animated beings, and place the wearers in a living 
posture, you have as elemental and as sure an appeal as a brass 
band, a fire, or a twelve-inch gun. A mass of men in orderly 
advance is impressive; add fife, drum and bugle and the effect is 
increased; add uniform or costume, and the full effect of page- 
antry is realized. Yesterday, the loudest applause was for the 
Scotchmen in their plaids and kilts, the college boys in cap and 
gown, the Garibaldians, the serried ranks of shining top hats that 
marked Tammany's irresistible advance. That is pageantry; 
but for the several dozen ambulatory specimens of Coney Island 
sculpture we have, with a few exceptions, little to say." 

Nevertheless the day of the pageant was one of the greatest 
in the city's history. But it was not the pageant; it was the 
crowd that watched it that made it so. 



IV 
THE PASSING OF ARMED MEN 

THEY started promptly at one o'clock. "At i p.m., 
sharp." The terse colloquialism really expresses it 
better — the promptness of the professionally trained 
armed man. This was a fighting force taught to obey 
orders. The order was for the head of the parade to swing into 
line at one o'clock; and at one o'clock into line it swung. For 
three hours thereafter, while the sun flashed on six miles of steel- 
glinted city streets and shone on the colors of four kingdoms and 
three republics, a mass of human beings, standing still, was held, 

47 



THE HUDSON-FULTON CELEBRATION 

psychically, in the grip of another mass of human beings steadily, 
rhythmically moving forward. It was said that there were 
twenty-five thousand sailors and soldiers in line. Each nation 
represented had its traditions of warfare and discipline behind 
its men. They marched with the ease of custom to the cadence 
of command. When the drum major at the head of the first band 
thrust his right leg forward, the last soldier, bringing up the rear of 
twenty-five thousand marching men, also, and at the same in- 
stant, thrust his right leg forward. With every step twenty-five 
thousand feet beat tattoo in unison on the city streets. The 
tongues of a thousand orators could not have brought home to 
the multitude more eloquently the power that lies behind disci- 
pline. 

When the head of the line swung out of iioth Street into 
Central Park West, word of the start of the parade passed By 
telephone down to the reviewing stand at the Court of Honor. It 
would be an hour and a half before the parade would reach there, 
but gold lace by the yard and cocked hats by the store full, al- 
ready were arriving in "autos" and "taxis" and making their 
way to the stand. It was an interesting prelude to the real event 
of the day, for the crowd to observe the arrival of the British 
Admiral, the German Grossadmiral, and the other commanders 
and their staffs; and their reception, with all the formality pre- 
scribed by military and naval etiquette. There was constant 
bobbing up and down of men in the full dress uniform of their 
rank, from the doyen of the fleet, the British admiral, to the 
commander of the Argentine training ship. It required eight 
automobiles to convey the Governor of the State of New York 
and his gold-laced staff to the reviewing stand, and every commo- 
tion of this sort, even the arrival of the mayor with the city flag 

48 



THE PASSING OF ARMED MEN 

and an escort of mounted police, was a tidbit for those who had 
stood in place since early morning in order to be able to see the 
parade from a point of vantage. 

Fifth Avenue, from curb to curb and clear to the Plaza, was a 
clean path of asphalt, it might have been the smooth surface 
of a frozen river between two evenly levelled banks packed with 
men, women and children. 

It was, perhaps, a little after two o'clock, when suddenly a 
black line was silhouetted against the horizon at the Plaza end 
of the reach. Apparently it was coming very slowly — so slowly, 
one discerned it was moving only by the way it filled up from 
behind— filled up steadily, until, instead of a mere silhouetted line, 
a black mass was in sight; not marching or even gliding, but just 
slowly oozing down the hill. And as it drew nearer it seemed to 
come faster. The ooze changed to a flow, the flow became per- 
vaded with a suggestion of set undulation, which in turn became 
charged with a rhythmic rise and fall, not yet as of separate 
atoms, but as of one huge mass being shoved steadily forward 
by an unseen force from the rear. At last— it was half-past two 
— it took on the shape, color and throb of a marching army, its 
banners flung to the wind, its bayonets glistening in the sun. 

First came the platoon of lean, sinewy troopers of the mounted 
police force. Following this platoon, and well in advance of his 
escort, the Grand Marshal of the parade, Major General Charles 
F. Roe, rode his horse directly up in front of the place where 
stood the Governor surrounded by the foreign officers and other 
guests, saluted, received the Governor's acknowledgment — and 
the review was on. Squadron A, uniform sky blue with blue- 
topped astrakhan shakos, preceded by its mounted band and 
acting as the grand marshal's escort, were the first to pass. 

49 



THE HUDSON-FULTON CELEBRATION 

Then necks were craned. For the second time only, since 
Evacuation Day, 1783, fighting men of England were marching 
through New York streets. 

First came a giant — a drum-major who, with his huge bearskin 
shako, and dexterously manipulating a staff proportionate to 
his height, appeared all of eight feet. There followed after "as 
nifty a marine band as ever pushed wind through reed and brass." 
Its coats were red, and it blew a tune familiar to the seven seas 
but strange to Fifth Avenue. The sailor and the horse are not 
supposed to stay long together; but the commanders of the In- 
flexible, Drake, Argyll and Duke of Edinburgh, were mounted and 
rode their mounts as well as any colonel. Against the bayonets 
of the King's men flapped the British ensign. Company after 
company of sailors swung past, the deep blue of their service 
uniforms setting off the brighter blue of their wide collars'. 
Trousers tucked into brown canvas leggings and straw hats with 
curled up rims that made them look like inverted chopping bowls, 
completed the uniform. Onlookers were interested, in the mid- 
shipmen, one of whom marched with a lieutenant, in front of each 
company and held a little sword straight up before his chest. 

Kipling has told of the "jollies" — 

. . . her Majesty's jollies; 
Soldier and sailor too, 

and they passed after the sailors. Brilliant in their red coats, 
helmets of spotless white, cartridge-belt stays that showed the 
result of assiduous application of pipe clay, they were a lusty 
looking lot of men. 

There was cheering, plenty of it, for the men and the flag. 
50 



THE PASSING OF ARMED MEN 

Then the unexpected happened. Naturally there was a gap 
between the divisions, and the cheering for the British force died 
away as the Germans approached. At that moment one saw 
not so much the men of the German ships as a flag held high and 
well to the fore in the division. As the column neared Forty- 
second Street the shrill music of a fife and drum corps pierced 
the air. But at the precise moment the head of the column had 
crossed Forty-second Street and entered the Court of Honor, 
down swept the drum-major's baton and crash! came the opening 
chords of "America." 

What was it that suddenly caught the crowd? 

Here were five hundred men marching past. At every step 
five hundred sturdy legs shot out with the precision of a piston 
rod, feet touched the ground at the same fraction of a second, 
and swung back again. Ahead of them — a color sergeant, bearded 
like another Wotan, bore the flag of the Hohenzollerns, with its 
black fighting eagles, all the fight in them showing out from the 
white ground on which they were charged. Generations of blood 
and iron had made it what it stands for — the symbol of the 
greatest fighting force in the modern world. 

Then there was that wonderful burst of music, at the precise 
instant the division had entered the Court of Honor — those crash- 
ing chords, like a salvo of artillery, from brass instruments whose 
huge bells looked like the muzzles of cannon. 

It was all this that caught the crowd — caught it in one of 
those moments of inspiration that sometimes come to a crowd 
tense with an emotion suddenly understood. The reviewing stand 
sprang to its feet, and the Court of Honor re-echoed with cheer 
after cheer, as that imperturbable body of fighting men, led by the 

5' 



THE HUDSON-FULTON CELEBRATION 

flag of the fighting eagles, went by. 1 1 was the psychical moment 
of the day — a frenzy of enthusiasm, as spontaneous as sudden. 

Although the passage of the Germans made the climax of the 
day come too early, there still was plenty that was interesting to 
follow. The sailors of the Third Republic, the Dutchmen from 
the Utrecht, with their broad-brimmed, wide-spreading leghorn 
hats and their guns slung in comfortable fashion over their shoul- 
ders, and then the Italians, went by in the order named. 

There was another outburst of enthusiasm, second only to the 
greeting given the Germans, when company after company of 
West Point cadets marched past with perfect alignment. The 
coast artillery in their uniforms with red facing— their insignia, a 
red flag with the eagle perched on crossed cannon, waving over 
the ranks— made a fine showing. Then came the Argentines, and 
after them three long divisions of American bluejackets swung 
past the reviewing stand. The New York and Brooklyn regi- 
ments, followed by veteran organizations and the Irish volunteers, 
completed the parade — a military pageant carried out in flawless 
style, a fact of which future celebration committees might well 
take notice. 

V 
THE FLIGHT OF THE BIRD MAN 

CONSPICUOUS as was the contrast between the Half 
Moon and the modern battleship, or between the 
Clermont and the ocean greyhound, nothing so firmly 
pressed the seal of the twentieth century upon the 
celebration as the aeroplane flights of Wilbur Wright. Glenn H. 

52 



THE FLIGHT OF THE BIRD MAN 

Curtiss, another American aviator who had been engaged by the 
Commission, unfortunately was unable to make more than one 
short "jump," remaining in the air but half a minute. 

Wright made his flights from Governor's Island. In the first 
of these he flew around the island; in the second, made on the 
same day, Wednesday, September 29th, he circled the Statue of 
Liberty; in the third, Monday, October 4th, he flew from Gover- 
nor's Island to Grant's tomb and back. This was his finest per- 
formance, but the flight around the Statue of Liberty also was 
watched with intense interest. In that flight he rose easily 
from the monorail, along which his aeroplane was run for the 
start, to a height of about twenty feet, then headed straight 
toward St. George, Staten Island, the propeller blades "churn- 
ing" the air at tremendous speed and leaving behind them a trail 
of noise that aptly has been compared with the whirr of a giant 
locust. 

Gradually soaring upward to about one hundred feet above 
the water, Wright made a pretty swerve to the westward and 
headed for Communipaw, on the New Jersey shore, the two long 
white canvas planes cleanly silhouetted against the dark blue 
haze beyond. 

"I believe he's ofi" for Philadelphia!" exclaimed someone in 
the crowd that had been left wide-eyed and staring on Governor's 
Island during the few minutes that had elapsed since the start. 
These were the first words to break the tense silence of wonder- 
ment. There were one or two titters, and then Taylor, Wright's 
usually uncommunicative assistant, said quietly, and more as if 
he were speaking to himself: 

"No, he will round the Statue of Liberty." 
53 



THE HUDSON-FULTON CELEBRATION 

The aeroplane, which now was well to the south of Bedloe's 
Island suddenly came around with another curve, and catching 
the wind flashed past the "Liberty," and bore down upon Gov- 
ernor's Island at a racing clip. 

Slowly Wright let the aeroplane drop in a series of glides un- 
til, crossing the breakwater, he was only twenty-five feet in the 
air. Describing a circle he passed behind the group around the 
starting rail, glided by a line of soldiers at drill, then settled 
lightly upon the ground, and stepped quietly out of the machine. 

Wright informed the aeronautics committee on Sunday 
night, October 3d, that he would fly over the battleships the 
following morning, but there was not sufficient time to spread 
the news, and so it was a small crowd for the event that saw what 
many consider the greatest feat of aviation thus far recorded. 
In fact, when Wright arrived on the Island at eight o'clock, there 
were so few spectators that he had to call upon some of the sol- 
diers to assist him and Taylor in hauling the machine out of the 
shed and over the sand to the monorail. As usual both aviator 
and assistant were silent as they looked the 'plane over, here and 
there tightening a screw or tuning up some obscure part of the 
apparatus; and both appeared wholly oblivious to the crowd 
which, now, was increasing; until by a quarter before ten o'clock 
there were about a hundred persons in the little enclosure near 
the aeroplane, and about a thousand back of the sentry line. 

At seven minutes of ten Wright glanced at his watch and he 
and Taylor, after starting the engine, put their weight on the 
propeller blades to set them in motion. Suddenly and with the 
crackling sound of a mowing machine they whirled into action. 
Wright buttoned the coat of his light suit, pulled his cap a little 

54 



THE FLIGHT OF THE BIRD MAN 

closer to his head, put a pocket handkerchief where he could reach 
it easily, and stepped to his seat. He carefully looked along the 
rail, which was set directly into the wind as in his previous flight, 
glanced about the harbor, then turned quietly to Taylor and said: 
"I'll land right there by the end of the rail. Have the soldiers 
keep the crowd away from there. I'll be back in thirty min- 
utes — let 'er go, Charlie." 

He grasped the controlling levers and was ready. As he sat 
there, eyes straight ahead, chin squared, lips firmly pressed to- 
gether, and every muscle in his body taut as the wire in the 
rigging of the 'plane, he was a picture that stamped itself upon 
the onlookers' memory. More than one person has pointed out 
that Wilbur Wright's profile is that of an Indian, an impression 
that is confirmed by a grim determination of feature, and his 
lithe, rangy figure. And indeed, as he sat bronzed, rigid and 
determined in the aeroplane, he might have been a statue of an 
aboriginal American. 

The machine stirred. It ran down the monorail like a truck, 
with Taylor at one end of the 'plane pushing to add momentum. 
At the terminus of the rail the forward end of the machine tilted 
upward and the aeroplane rose with a graceful sweep about 
twenty feet in air. Slowly it rose higher and higher taking as 
direct a course up the river as if it had been a motor boat. It had 
just left the island when a ferry-boat came puffing out of its slip 
with great volumes of black smoke. It looked as if the 'plane 
surely would be obliged to pass through it, but just as easily as 
that same motor boat would have circled the ferry-boat, so 
Wright veered his 'plane just enough to keep in the clear at- 
mosphere, f 

55 



THE HUDSON-FULTON CELEBRATION 

Within a couple of minutes after leaving the rail the machine 
had passed out of sight in the mist beyond the high wall of sky- 
scrapers. It was then at a height of about two hundred feet 
above the water. 

There was silence on Governor's Island. "O wad some power 
the giftie gi'e us!" For the expression on the faces in the crowd 
would have conveyed to Wright better than words or cheer the 
awe and wonder of those whom he had just left. Even army 
officers stared open-mouthed at the sky from which the aeroplane 
had just disappeared. 

Twice thereafter those on the island heard choruses of whistles 
and surmised that Wright was passing over groups of boats; 
and each time the tense silence, thus broken, fell more heavily 
again. Then, suddenly and about seventeen minutes after the 
start, there came echoing down the river and out into the harbor 
a great din of whistles, and the crowd knew that Wright had 
reached Grant's Tomb, and had turned, and that the whole fleet of 
warships was screeching its tribute. Another long wait. More 
pressure of suspense, with, however, Taylor's confident expression 
not changed a whit. It was just as the half hour was announced 
that, rushing out of the haze on the Jersey side, the aeroplane shot 
into view. Again Wright was flying at a racing clip and making 
right for the island. On came the graceful white aeroplane, 
steadily gliding downward as it approached the island where the 
crowd still was watching in silent wonder. The aviator alighted 
at the end of the rail, just as he had indicated he would, before 
he started, and within three minutes and thirty-three seconds 
of the time he had stated to Taylor the flight would occupy. 
And he came down as a bird on its perch — so lightly it seemed 

56 



THE ASSEMBLING OF THE OLD MASTERS 

that, had a full glass of water been standing on top of one of the 
'planes, not a drop would have spilled. 

Experts in matters of aviation regard Wright's flight up the 
Hudson as one of the greatest feats of its kind. Bleriot, they 
point out, when he flew over the English Channel, had a clear 
sheet of water below him and a comparatively steady wind. 
Wright flew twenty miles over a river crowded with all manner 
of craft, and encountered, as he himself said, many changing cur- 
rents caused by the high buildings of Manhattan, Whatever 
flying may become to succeeding generations, Wright's perform- 
ance was a marvel to those who witnessed it. 



VI 
THE ASSEMBLING OF THE OLD MASTERS 

A RT survives when temporal glory has perished. Long 
/\ after the color and sound of pageantry attending the 
/\ celebration have become faint memories, the exhibi- 
tion of Dutch masters of Hudson's period held in the 
Metropolitan Museum of Art still will exert a potent influence. 
Exhibitions, noteworthy of their kind, also were held in the 
American Museum of Natural History, New York Historical 
Society, and elsewhere, but the assembling of the Dutch old mas- 
ters in the art museum, might be called epoch-making since it 
opened the eyes, not only of this country but of Europe as well, 
to what may be described as the "collected" art of America. 

The committee on art exhibits for the celebration consisted 
of J. Pierpont Morgan, as general chairman of the art and his- 

57 



THE HUDSON-FULTON CELEBRATION 

torical committee; Robert W. de Forest, chairman of the special 
committee on art exhibits; and Sir Purdon Clarke, George A. 
Hearn, George F. Kunz and Edward Robinson. So far as con- 
cerned the Metropolitan exhibition, it was decided, wisely, to 
confine it to art, and not to attempt an historical or biographical 
display. The celebration being a twofold one, the problem of 
honoring Fulton in the exhibition also had to be considered. It 
was solved in the best possible manner by bringing together, 
under the general supervision of Henry W. Kent, the museum's 
assistant secretary, a representative collection of the fine arts 
in America, from the colonial period to the first quarter of the 
nineteenth century. This feature of the exhibition was surpris- 
ing for its variety, beauty and charm, both in what was shown 
and the manner of its display. 

Regarding the Hudson end of the Metropolitan exhibition it 
constituted a loan collection of Dutch old masters that would 
have been noteworthy for any country. It was commented on 
in Europe even before the event, and the fact deplored that Eu- 
rope had sustained the loss of so many art treasures through the 
wealth, enterprise and taste of American collectors. It did not 
take the public long to appreciate that what was Europe's loss 
was its gain, and for weeks the sturdy Dutchmen of the seven- 
teenth century looked down from their frames upon a throng of 
visitors, and perhaps wondered why they had become objects 
of such importance. 

The exhibition was, in fact, a liberal education in the Dutch 
art of Hudson's period. Fortunately this period — if not too 
strictly limited — covers the golden era of Dutch painting, be- 
tween 1625 and 1670, although, as Dr. William Valentiner has 

58 



THE ASSEMBLING OF THE OLD MASTERS 

pointed out in his preface to the catalogue of the exhibition, 
lustre was lent to it by three generations of masters. These were 
Frans Hals, born in 1584; Rembrandt, born in 1606; and Jan 
Vermeer, born in 1632. As these artists were represented in the 
display, and notably, it will be observed that what was denom- 
inated the "Hudson period" was liberally interpreted. The ex- 
hibition was especially fortunate in its superb assemblage of Rem- 
brandt's works — no less than thirty-seven— since "Rembrandt's 
productive era embraces almost completely that of the three 
generations, whose art, but for his influence, could never have 
attained so rich a development." The two artists mentioned be- 
sides Rembrandt as the most noteworthy figures of this era, also 
were admirably represented, there being in the exhibition twenty 
works by Frans Hals, and five Vermeers, the last a very fair 
proportion, considering that there are only seven canvases by 
this master in America, and only between thirty and forty 
known. 

It has seemed to me not inappropriate, both as a matter of 
record and as an acknowledgment to at least some of those who 
placed part of their collections at the disposal of the committee 
arranging this public exhibition, and — inasmuch as the Rem- 
brandts were its chief glory— to give the titles of the thirty-seven 
pictures by this master that were in the show, together with the 
names of those who contributed them. They follow here: 

REMBRANDT, VAN RIJN 

Portrait of Himself, c. 1628 . . Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, New York 
Portraitof Himself, 1631 . . . Mr. E. D. Libbey, Toledo 
Portrait of Himself, 1631 . . Mr. Frank G. Logan, Chicago 

59 



THE HUDSON-FULTON CELEBRATION 



Nicolaes Ruts, 163 1 .... 
Portrait of a Man, 1632 
The Noble Slav, 1632 .... 
St. John the Baptist, 1632 

Saskia, c. 1633 

Portrait of a Young Man, c. 1633 . 
Portrait of a Young Woman, c. 1633 
Portrait of a Man, c. 1633 . 
The Marquis d' Andelot, c. 1634 . 
The Finding of Moses, c. 1635 
Slaughtered Ox, 1637 .... 
The Gilder Herman Doomer, 1640 
Portrait of an Old Woman, 1640 . 
Portrait of Himself, c. 1645 
Portrait of a Girl, 1645 

(Hendrickje Stoflfels?) . . . 
Portrait of a Young Man, 1647 
A Young Painter, 1648 

(Jan van de Capelle?) 
Portrait of Himself, 1650 . 
Study of an Old Man, c. 1650 . 
The Philosopher, c. 1650 

The Savant, 1653 

The Standard-Bearer, 1654 
Portrait of a Man, 1655 
Portrait of an Old Man, c. 1655 

The Sibyl, c. 1656 

Portrait of Himself, 1658 . 
Hendrickje Stoflfels, 1660 . 

The Accountant 

Lucretia, 1664 

60 



Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, New York 
Anonymous 

Mr. W. K. Vanderbilt, New York 
Mr. Charles Stewart Smith, New York 
Mr. P. A. B. Widener, Philadelphia 
Mrs. Morris K. Jesup, New York 
Mrs. Morris K. Jesup, New York 
New York Historical Society 
Mr. Richard Mortimer, New York 
Mr. John G. Johnson, Philadelphia 
Mr. John G. Johnson, Philadelphia 
Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, New York 
Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, New York 
Mr. Herbert S. Terrell, New York 

Art Institute, Chicago 

Mr. Henry C. Frick, New York 

Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, New York 
Mr. P. A. B. Widener, Philadelphia 
Mr. George J. Gould, New York 
Mr. P. A. B. Widener, Philadelphia 
Mrs. Collis P. Huntington, New York 
Mr. George J. Gould, New York 
Mr. James Ross, Montreal 
Mr. W. A. Slater, Washington 
Mr. Theo. M. Davis, Newport 
Mr. Henry C. Frick, New York 
Mrs. Collis P. Huntington, New York 
Mr. Charles M. Schwab, New York 
Mr. M. C. D. Borden, New York 



THE ASSEMBLING OF THE OLD MASTERS 

Portrait of a Man, 1665 . . . Metropolitan Museum of Art 

Portrait of a Man, c. 1665 . . . Metropolitan Museum of Art 

Portrait of a Young Man (called 

"Thomas Jacobsz Haring") . Mr. B. Altman, New York 

Titus, the Son of Rembrandt ("The 

Man with a Magnifying Glass") Mr. B. Altman, New York 

Magdalena van Loo, Wife of Rem- 
brandt's Son Titus ("The Lady 
with a Pink") . . . . Mr. B. Altman, New York 

There are more famous Rembrandts than any comprised in 
the list given above. The "Night Watch," the "Lesson in 
Anatomy," readily come to mind. Yet it seemed as if, within 
the range of these thirty-seven paintings, he had run the gamut of 
his powers — for the ultimate benefit of a young and, as a whole, 
artistically crude nation. It is hardly necessary to do more than 
mention the large self-portrait from the Frick collection, the 
wonderful "Savant" contributed by Mrs. C. P. Huntington, and 
that speaking canvas, from the Chicago Art Institute, "Portrait 
of a Girl," very likely a portrait of Hendrickje Stoffels. As stated, 
there are Rembrandts more famous than these, but it seems as if 
these three, in their wide differentiation of subject, subtle light- 
ing and depth of feeling, and in the possession of all those qualities 
that combine to make what is called a "great" picture, present 
a complete summary of the master's art; while the whole array 
of Rembrandts made it seem as if Dr. Bode's panegyric on his 
favorite among all masters had come to life to restate its own 
postulates. 

It will be admitted that this is no place for a critical review 
of an art exhibition. Only its significance can be pointed out, 

61 



THE HUDSON-FULTON CELEBRATION 

and this has been done. It remains to add, however, that re- 
markable as this loan collection appeared even in the eyes of 
Europe, several of the great American collections were drawn on 
for only a portion of their wealth, and two of the finest private 
collections in America did not contribute at all. 

The author of the preface made an interesting deduction 
from the experience of those who had the assembling of the 
collection in charge. It proved that American collectors have 
a marked preference for certain masters and for certain classes 
of paintings — portraits especially; Rembrandt and Hals being 
almost exclusively represented by portraits. Among Dutch 
landscape painters the preference was for Hobbema and Cuyp. 
Biblical subjects seem to be little sought for, and it is instanced 
that of the seventy Rembrandts in America only four deal with 
such. To still life, typical Dutch genre, and animal subjects 
also, the American collector appears to have remained somewhat 
indifferent. 



VII 
THE CAPTAINS AND THE KINGS DEPART 

INCIDENTS of the celebration were the banquet to the 
Commission's guests at the Hotel Astor, with covers for 
2,100 people; public school exercises; rowing races between 
crews from the warships; a naval parade of divisions 
on Friday, October ist, one division starting from New York 
and escorting the Half Moon and Clermont to Newburg, where 
it was met by the second division that had started from 

62 



THE CAPTAINS AND THE KINGS DEPART 

Albany; and the carnival pageant of many floats on the night of 
Saturday, October 2d. 

The second week celebrations took place in cities along the 
Hudson River, and the festivities had already closed so far as New 
York City was concerned. The week in the city had been entirely 
free from serious accidents, although every precaution had been 
taken to meet emergencies of this kind by the establishment of a 
sufficient number of field hospitals. According to the official 
report of the Interborough road, that system carried 15,124,141 
during celebration week in the city. 

A medal designed by Emil Fuchs, an Austrian painter and 
sculptor residing in London, but maintaining a winter studio in 
New York, was issued by the Commission and the American 
Numismatic Society. As it represented a scene on the Half 
Moon on one face and an allegorical design in honor of Fulton 
on the other, it was a medal without a reverse — practically two 
medals in one. The United States issued an oblong Hudson- 
Fulton two-cent postage stamp. 

Even with the beginning of festivities up the river the cele- 
bration in the city was not quite over. There was a final sputter 
on the night of Saturday, October 9th, when a chain of beacon 
fires, each composed of Irish peat and thirty feet high, and ex- 
tending at high points from Staten Island to Newburg, was lighted. 
This, too, was the last night of the illumination. 

It was a misty night, and the celebration did not go out in the 
blaze that had been expected. But really nobody cared — that 
is, nobody in the city. Of the captains and the kings some had 
departed, others were preparing to, no doubt bearing away with 
them the impression that, in spite of some rough edges in their 

63 



THE HUDSON-FULTON CELEBRATION 

entertainment, this was a good land to fall in with and a pleasant 
land to see. 

When, at last, the beacons had burned themselves out — when 
on dune and headland had sunk the fires — the Hudson-Fulton 
Celebration was over. The city had had its fun, paid the piper, 
and closed the account, and — with something that sounded very 
much like a sigh of relief — became itself again. 






f ,' ^1 ^ ^> ^> ^ ^J ^ ^ 





OFFICERS 
OF 
THE HUDSON-FULTON CELEBRATION 
COMMISSION . 



OFFICERS 

OF 

THE HUDSON-FULTON CELEBRATION 

COMMISSION 

PRESIDENT 
GENERAL STEWART L. WOODFORD 



ANDREW CARNEGIE 

JOSEPH H. CHOATE 

MAJ.-GEN. F. D. GRANT, U. S. A 

SETH LOW 

J. PIERPONT MORGAN 

LEVI P. MORTON 

ALTON B. PARKER 



VICE-PRESIDENTS 
HERMAN RIDDER 

JOHN E. PARSONS 



HORACE PORTER 
FREDERICK W. SEWARD 
FRANCIS LYNDE STETSON 
OSCAR S. STRAUS 
WM. B. VAN RENSSELAER 
JAMES GRANT WILSON 



TREASURER 
ISAAC N. SELIGMAN 



SECRETARY 
HENRY W. SACKETT 



ASSISTANT SECRETARY 
EDWARD HAGAMAN HALL 



THE HUDSON-FULTON CELEBRATION COMMISSION WAS 

CHARTERED BY THE STATE OF NEW YORK. IT 

CONSISTED OF FIVE HUNDRED MEMBERS, 

FORTY-SEVEN OF WHOM WERE 

MAYORS OF CITIES IN 

THE STATE. 



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